Natalie Blanton is an interdisciplinary, multi-sensory artist and owner of Honey Water Shop, in Berlin, Maryland, whose work draws from a background in visual art, Integrative bodywork and fragrance formulation.
In 2008, Blanton’s education started as an art major at Salisbury University and transmuted, pulling her to Colorado where she studied Integrative Bodywork with emphasis on Eastern philosophies of Zen Shiatsu. Following an interest in the interplay of the human senses, particularly the sense of smell and its effect on the brain's perception, emotion and memory; Blanton continued her studies to become a Certified Aromatherapist. She later completed a program at Pratt Institute in Olfactive Technique and Advanced Perfumery.
As a visual artist, Blanton has had the opportunity to participate in group and solo exhibitions both locally and nationally. Using a combination of clays, botanical inks, chalks, acrylics, oils, and fragrance, her work gives a gentle “body” to the layers of energy that exist in the world around us by a technique of repeatedly applying and wiping away medium from the canvas, resulting in ethereal, dreamlike landscapes. These mysterious, yet intentionally simplistic landscapes ask the viewer to pause and explore what messages might be suspended between our realms of conscious, subconscious and unconscious or dreaming thoughts.
Statement
I am interested in the influence of what is invisible and the interaction of our senses in relation to the world around us. As members of the animal kingdom we use information we gather from our senses, in concert, to both guide and protect us, and to fully experience a moment, be it pleasure or pain. I am fascinated by the brain's ability to form memories and recount them when triggered by smells, textures, tastes, sounds and sights. As we drift further from our animal origins, commonly experiencing much of what we encounter as spectators through a 2 dimensional screen, we might find ourselves losing the satisfaction and importance of engaging with the world as a member of it.
In my work, by using landscape as a metaphor for the human experience, I am attempting to embody and preserve the notion of intuition as a sense that can be understood by tapping into the visceral rhythms of the world around us. I feel most attuned and comforted in places where land, water and atmosphere meet and I paint them to represent the tangible/visible, invisible and metaphysical layers that envelop and carry us through the landscapes of our lives.